§ Lord Brougham and Vauxasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the ban on feeding certain animal protein to cattle will continue.
§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington)The Minister has recently made the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Order 1989 (SI 1989/2326), which will extend indefinitely the ban on the use of animal protein derived from ruminants in feed for cattle and other ruminants.
The current prohibition, which was due to expire on 31st December this year, was introduced to prevent this practice, which is considered to be the probable cause of BSE. It was made clear when the original ban came into effect that it would be continued unless processing methods sufficient to destroy the casual agent were identified and were widely available. At present no such method of processing has been identified and further research is needed on the time/temperature combination necessary to destroy the BSE agent.